012: Unlocking the Secrets of Sleep: Why You're not Sleeping and Tips for Better Rest

Welcome to the Real Food Mental Health podcast, where we explore the powerful connection between

mental and physical health. My name is Cody Cox, a holistic nutritional psychotherapist, and I'm here to

guide you on a journey to true wellness, mind, body, and spirit. If you're tired of quick fixes and want

real solutions that address the root cause, you're in the right place. Let's get started on your path to lasting

wellness. It's been a while since I've done a solo recording, and I've gotten some feedback that some

people really like listening to my solo recordings. I don't know why, but here it is. Here's a solo recording

for you. Have you ever found yourself staring at the ceiling counting sheep at 3 a.m.? I know I have. And

I think that's a really common thing. Whether you are awake at 3 a.m. and you haven't fallen asleep at all.

Or maybe you did fall asleep for a while, and then you suddenly woke up and you're having a hard time

getting back to sleep. So why is sleep important? Sleep is so important for so many different processes in

the mind and the body. And honestly, I think sleep is still very much a mystery for most scientists even

today. But we have a lot of really great information, especially with the help of modern technology,

particularly fitness trackers. So Fitbits, Garmins, Apple Watches, all those things are giving us some

great insight on the quality of our sleep and the different sleep cycles that we are going into as we are

sleeping, and it's helping to further research. Obviously, these devices are not clinical grade, they're not

medical devices, but at least at the end consumer level, they are very, very helpful in helping us to

improve our sleep habits. If you are not getting enough sleep. There are many negative effects that you

could possibly get, including memory problems, mood and behavioral changes, difficulty concentrating,

slow healing, low energy which is a given unresolved trauma. That's something that most people don't

think about. Aches and pains a decrease in body temperature or frequently feeling cold, gastrointestinal

issues or digestive issues, and maybe even in extreme cases you might notice some paranoia,

hallucinations, and confusion. We've got a couple of really interesting statistics from Sleep Foundation.

The average American adult gets less than seven hours of sleep per night. And I know, like when I say

the number seven, you're probably thinking, oh, that's pretty good. But less than seven is actually not

pretty good. We want more like 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night. But then I also want to point out that

when I talk to people in therapy sessions and I say, tell me how you're sleeping most of the time they say,

oh, well, I'm getting like eight hours a night or seven hours a night. And then my question almost always

after that is, how do you feel when you wake up? It's not just about the quantity of sleep like we've been

led to believe. We actually want to focus on the quality too. So we want 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night.

But hopefully if you're sleeping well, you're going to wake up feeling refreshed and alert rather than

groggy and dreading the day. So you don't even really need a sleep tracker to know if you're sleeping

well, if you don't have one. Just pay attention to how you feel when you wake up. And that will tell you

how well you are sleeping. 7% of American adults nap every day, which might be a good thing. It kind of

depends on the timing of your naps, how long you're sleeping, and what time of day you're sleeping. So

generally, we want to sleep between about 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.. It also depends on when you wake up in the

morning and when you go to bed. There are so many variables, but I think for most people it's that mid-

afternoon time. Interestingly, if you look at cultures that practice siestas, they work fewer hours in the

week than societies that don't practice siestas. So like the United States, for instance, we don't do siestas

usually. And we work more hours in a week than most other countries in the world. And I think the one

exception to that might be Japan or China. We work a lot of hours and we don't take siestas or naps, but

that might actually be hurting us because the countries that do practice siestas, they work fewer hours,

but they are equally productive or more productive than the countries who don't practice siestas. And so

if you can think about taking a nap, but be very mindful of the time, like I said, around 2:03 p.m. but thenalso the length of time matters. If it's between 15 and 30 minutes, that would be optimal to hit the right

stages of sleep. If you want a longer nap, hit 60 to 90 minutes of sleep. So 15 to 30 or 60 to 90 minutes.

And again, that's so you can hit the right stages of sleep to make it most effective. What happens when

we sleep? Well, we go through different sleep cycles. I'm not going to get into very specific details on the

sleep cycles, but in general we go into REM sleep, which stands for rapid eye movement and we go into

non REM sleep. Technically non REM sleep has a few different stages in it, but I'm just going to keep it

very general here. REM and non-REM REM sleep I think most people have heard of. We know it's

important, but if you don't have good quality sleep you are probably not hitting REM sleep at all, or not

very much. Why is REM sleep important? Well, this is where your brain naturally processes its own

trauma. And this is also when you store memories. And so most of the time when people come to me and

they say, I'm having difficulty remembering things, I will say that tells me you are not hitting REM sleep,

which means you're not sleeping. Well. I'm pretty much 100% of the time. They say, yeah, you're right,

I'm not sleeping well. Focus on the quality of sleep if you want to get REM sleep, because most of that

happens earlier in the night. I mean, yeah, you'll get some of it later in the night too, but you're going to

get more of it if you go to bed earlier. Typically, if you go to bed before 10 or 11 p.m., you're going to

sleep so much better than if you stay up later than 11 p.m.. Again, it depends on the person. It depends on

when you wake up, when you what your lifestyle is like. But generally 11:00 is that cutoff time. And I

have heard from some sources that it's 10:00, and at that point your body releases stress hormones to

keep you awake. And so what happens when you have stress hormones? You start to feel stressed. You

start to feel anxious. And you will stay awake for at least a few more hours. So you don't want to stay up

too late, even if you're getting eight hours. Even if you think you're getting good quality, try to go to bed

earlier rather than later, even on the weekends. I'll talk about some other strategies to improve sleep in a

minute, but before I move on to that, I wanted to quickly talk about non-REM sleep. We know REM

sleep is important. Non REM sleep is also important, but the reason we don't talk about non REM sleep

very often is because I think most people get it. If you're not sleeping well, you're probably still getting

the non-REM sleep. Not only are you getting cognitive benefits, but this is where you're also getting

some physical recovery. Tissue repair. So like if you are a person who does weightlifting and you are

tearing the fibers of your muscles when you are doing weight bearing exercises, this is when your body is

actually recovering from those things. I mean, yeah, you get a little bit of that during the day too, but

you're getting more of this during your non-REM sleep. So both non-REM and REM are important.

Some common misconceptions about sleep. I feel like this is so important to discuss, because most of us

have gotten misinformation about sleep. And I mean, we can't blame teachers. We can't blame authorities

for really giving us that misinformation because sleep is such a hard thing to understand. It's also a hard

thing to study in a scientific context. Um, and so we've just done our best to understand it, but many

people seem to have this idea that if we are only sleeping 4 or 5 hours a night during the week, we can

just make up for it by sleeping in on the weekends or. Another example is maybe if we're sleeping eight

hours a night during the week, then we can say, oh well, it's Friday night, I can stay up late and I can just

make up for it by sleeping in the next morning. Sleep doesn't work that way. So you have to remember

that our bodies are part of nature, and nature is very consistent. If we want to sleep well, we have to be

consistent with our sleep times and our wake times, even on the weekends. And I know, like a lot of

people hate it when I say that, even on the weekends. But it's true. You're going to feel so much better if

you're used to waking up at 6 a.m. during the week. Do that on the weekends and you are going to feel

better. It's going to take some time to get used to finding things to do earlier in the morning. That's a good

time to go out and go for a walk. Do some yoga. Write in a journal. Make yourself a healthy breakfast.

Do some exercise. There are different things you can do. And and by doing that, your day is going to goso much better. You're going to have more energy. Anxiety is the number one sleep killer, and I think

anxiety and stress are pretty much the same thing. They go hand in hand, but in most cases, if you're not

sleeping well, you're probably feeling stressed or anxious or both. And there are various reasons for that.

I mean, it might be the food that you're eating. It might be that you just live a really stressful lifestyle.

But there are different ways that we can improve that. Another common obstacle to sleeping well is

screen time and blue light. I think a lot of people, most people probably have heard of this at this point.

We are aware of, like the night shift setting in our iPhones and on on our our MacBooks, and they've got

similar settings on Windows and Android devices as well. You hear it talked about, but I don't think

people really understand why that's important. So basically what happens is when your brain perceives

that there's blue light coming in through the eyes, it signals to the brain that it's daytime. And so the brain

sends signals to other organs, as well as stopping the production of melatonin in the brain itself. And so

when it sends signals to the other organs, it's basically saying, hey, it's daytime. We need to be awake and

alert and do daytime things. You can get blue light exposure from various screen devices, including your

television, your laptop, your desktop, your smartwatch and your smartphone. And there might even be

some devices that you haven't thought of, like your essential oil diffuser has LED lights that give off blue

light, or your alarm clock that gives off blue light. There are so many different sources of blue light. That

could mess with the brain and confuse it into thinking that it's daytime when it's actually nighttime, and

that will mess with the sleep. Lamps or light fixtures that are installed in the ceiling. Nowadays we have

LED light bulbs that are pretty common. Um, I mean, it's good that we're trying to save energy, but what

is that doing to your sleep if it's the wrong color or if it's flickering? If you're getting cheap LED light

bulbs, they're probably flickering and they're probably the wrong color. And what I mean by the color is

it's like a cool white light instead of a warm white light. And the cool white will give off blue light waves

and basically tell the brain that it's daytime and thus cascading into the effects that I just described. So be

mindful of light. If you have the choice of the LED lights you're exposed to, make sure you get warm

white LED lights. Sometimes that's measured in a color temperature, like in units of Kelvin. So for

example, if you are reading a box and it says 3000 K, that's 3000 Kelvin. That's probably a soft white

light. That's probably pretty good. But the lower the number the better. As you get closer to bedtime, the

lower the number, the more orange or amber colored the light is going to be. And I know some people

think that's really weird, but that's frankly how nature works. You look at a sunset and it's more more

orange. And at nighttime, if you're looking at a fire, it's more orange. Nature gives us more orange colors

after sunset and more blue colors at midday. I'm not saying blue light is bad, and that is another

misconception about blue light. Blue light is not bad. It's just the timing of the blue light That is bad. We

want that in at midday, but not at any other time of the day. So here are some things that can help you

improve your sleep. We call this sleep hygiene. Or you might hear it referred to as self-care or some

other term, but some tips to improve your sleep. Not only do we need to be consistent with our bedtimes

and our wake times, and be mindful of the light that we're exposing ourselves to, but being mindful of the

environment that we're sleeping in. Ideally, we want to mimic nature as much as possible. So if you think

about if you've ever gone backpacking and you've slept in the backcountry where there are no electric

lights anywhere and there aren't a whole lot of people nearby, what's that environment like? You want to

mimic that in your bedroom? You want it to be as dark as possible. You want it to be comfortable. You

want it to be quiet. I know some people really like their white noise. They like to turn on the TV while

they're sleeping, listen to music while they're sleeping, or turn on a fan while they're sleeping. As a

therapist, I can tell you that's actually a trauma response. That's not natural. If you feel like you need

white noise, you probably have some trauma that you need to work through to help you sleep better. But

I'm not saying don't use the white noise. I mean, if you are really not sleeping without it, definitely use itwhile you are getting that trauma work done. But just be aware that that is a trauma response and

ultimately you don't want to need that noise. Managing stress and overthinking before bed. So there are

different things you can do to improve your stress before bed. It might be journaling. It might be

mindfulness meditation. Practicing yoga is a really good way to de-stress. Do not exercise before bed

though, because it gets your heart rate up and if your heart rate is up, you're not going to relax and you're

not going to sleep well. So ideally, you should stop exercising a few hours before bedtime. Another thing

to be mindful of is the things that you are putting in your mouth. So caffeine, alcohol, sugar, or even just

food in general, it kind of depends on what you're eating. But if you eat a big meal right before you go to

bed, you're not going to sleep well because your body's still digesting while you're sleeping. And so

ideally, just like with exercise, you want to stop eating a few hours before bedtime, if possible. Um, you

want to be sleeping in a fasted state? However, there is one caveat to that. If you have a consistent issue

of waking up around 2 or 3 a.m., that might be a sign that you have dysregulated blood sugar. And if

that's the case, you might try eating a protein and fat based snack before you go to bed. I mean, you're not

eating a big meal, but you are eating something. Don't make it a carb heavy snack, because that'll just

spike your blood sugar and perpetuate the blood sugar problems. But if you consistently wake up around

2 or 3 a.m., try a protein and fat based snack and see if that helps you sleep better, and see if that helps

you not wake up in the middle of the night. So I did mention caffeine, and I want to go a little bit more

into that because caffeine is such a common thing. If you use caffeine at all. Ideally you would stop using

it by 10 a.m.. And I know some people think, oh, well, caffeine doesn't make me hyper. It doesn't seem to

affect me, so therefore I'm okay using it. Well, even if it doesn't make you hyper, it might still be

affecting your sleep. And so just try try going without that caffeine by 10 a.m.. And see if it helps you

improve your sleep, because caffeine actually can take up to 14 hours to fully metabolize in your body.

And so ideally, you want to allow that time to happen before you go to bed. Alcohol is another one. And

here's a misconception that people have with alcohol is we think it calms the nervous system and it helps

us sleep better. It might help you fall asleep, but the problem with alcohol is that it does not help improve

the sleep quality that you're getting as a drug. It is classified as a depressant. And so yes, it does calm the

nervous system, but it does not make you sleep better. And so it just it just causes all kinds of problems.

Alcohol is a mild toxin in the body. And so you're just not going to sleep better with that. So you're better

off just avoiding it if at all possible. I do want to mention that I started a nutrition class that I'm offering

online. It goes for five weeks and this is a really good class for you if you have a New Year's resolution

to eat healthier, to lose weight, to just be healthier in general. Or maybe you want to do a sugar detox

from that sugar habit that might be lingering from the holidays. If you want more information, go to

Beavercreek Wellness. Com slash restart. You can read more about that. That's where you can register.

I'll put a link in the show notes, but I also wanted to mention that this first class is going to be cheaper

because this is my pilot class. After this class, it's going to double in price. So if you want to try the class,

make sure you jump on it and register for the January 30th class to save some money. There are different

professionals who can help you with your sleep problems if you have insomnia or sleep apnea. I think

insomnia is actually getting fairly common these days for various reasons. When possible though, do not

sleep on your back and breathe through your mouth because I have been told. Remember, I'm not a

physician, but I have been told by a physician that that actually can cause sleep apnea. So if possible, do

not sleep on the back. Do not breathe through the mouth while you are sleeping. And I mean, you're

probably okay if you sleep on your back and breathe through your nose, or sleep on your side and breathe

through your nose, but just don't do the back and breathing through your mouth. Combination sleep aids.

So this is a common thing because most of us have a hard time sleeping. So naturally we want to take

some NyQuil, or we want to take some melatonin, or even get a medication for asleep for getting helpwith our sleep. The problem with these things, I mean, they're not all created equal, for one thing. But

also I want to mention if you're taking a sleep medication or an over-the-counter sleep aid like NyQuil or

some other thing, it might help you fall asleep just like alcohol, but you're not going to sleep well. You

are not likely to get into that REM sleep. So if at all possible, it is ideal to stay away from sleep.

Medication a stay away from sleep aids if you do need to take something. I would recommend trying

something more natural, like melatonin, which is really common. Fairly inexpensive, but you don't want

to overdo the melatonin because for one thing, if you take too much, you're going to feel really groggy in

the morning. But then also, if you do it too consistently, your brain becomes kind of dependent on that

and it stops producing its own melatonin. That's bad. So don't overdo the melatonin. I'm not saying don't

take it, but just don't overdo it. Um, and there are other options. There are things that you can take that

can help help improve your sleep. Natural supplements like Gaba or phosphate serine is a great option if

you struggle with overthinking while you're trying to sleep. Um, and you can do some research to find

some more, but there are definitely some natural options out there that won't impede your ability to sleep

well. You might see a therapist, you might see a doctor, you might see a just a sleep specialist in general.

But there are different practitioners that you can see. I would even say maybe even check in to seeing a

massage therapist or a chiropractor. It kind of depends on. On the practitioner that you're looking at and

what kind of treatments they do. But there are so many practitioners out there that could possibly help

you with your sleep. If you want to see a practitioner. You'll definitely need to. If you've gone many,

many nights without any sleep. So that would be the classic definition of insomnia. Or if you are

consistently just not sleeping well, you might seek out professional help. So as a recap, some small

changes can lead to big improvements in your sleep quality. Sleep quantity is also important, but do not

forget the sleep quality. You do not need a sleep tracker to track your quality, although it can be helpful

to have one. But if you don't have one, just pay attention to how you feel when you wake up. Do you feel

groggy in the morning? That's a sign that you didn't sleep well, and if you feel alert and refreshed, that's a

sign that you did sleep well. So try one of these tips. Maybe you'll even try all of these tips. And I

actually really do want to know if this episode has helped you sleep better. Or maybe you found some

other tip that you found really helpful. Provide some feedback, because it's really fun to see that the

content that I'm putting out there is helping people. If you like this podcast, please take some time to

leave a review and share with your friends. Subscribe for more episodes. That really helps me out,

because it puts me in a position where my podcast is exposed to other potential listeners who might be

interested in my content. If you like this podcast and you want to support me, go to Kofi Cody Cox, that's

Kofi slash Cody Cox real Food Mental Health is intended for informational and entertainment purposes

only. The information presented on this podcast is not intended to replace any medical advice, diagnosis

or treatment. While I am a healthcare provider, I am not your provider. Always seek the advice of an

appropriate health care practitioner with any personal questions you may have regarding a medical

condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you

have heard on this podcast. Reliance on information provided by this podcast is at your own risk.